


Reveillon

by tehkittykat



Category: Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Genre: GFY, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-14
Updated: 2011-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-16 23:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tehkittykat/pseuds/tehkittykat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Phoenix gets lost in Paris on Christmas Eve of all things, searching for a particular soul that might not be lost, but has certainly taken to hiding in churches lately. A bit of an AU take on how Phoenix and Miles re-encounter one another, written before the US release of Gyakuten Saiban 2/PW: Justice for All.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reveillon

Paris in December was like nothing Phoenix had ever imagined, though honestly speaking Phoenix hadn't imagined much of _anything_ at all between the sore feet of check-in, the security inspections (twice at the airport, enough time wasted to almost make him miss his flight), and the mind-numbing hours stuck in coach a row between rowdy college students returning from a semester abroad and the extended family from _hell_ , complete with three screaming toddlers. Passing through customs (another two hours thanks to the idiot three places ahead of him in line, who had thought it was just a _brilliant_ idea to try and smuggle some miscellaneous bits of deer across international borders), he'd been hit almost immediately by the language barrier, complicating infinitely the normally simple task of finding a hotel to hole up in and sleep off the raging jet lag. Rusty Spanish lessons and a phrasebook had eventually navigated the overwhelmed lawyer to his hotel, and he'd come perilously close to kissing the old man who had finally taken pity on him and helped him check in. Thank God for internet reservations-- without the self-explanatory printouts clutched firmly in hand, some gremlin of holiday mishaps would have _certainly_ seen to it that he'd be stuck sleeping on a bench in a metro station somewhere. It had been _that_ kind of nightmarish trip, the sort only rivaled in Phoenix's memory with the equally ill-advised cross-country road trip he'd taken with Larry after graduating high school... though Phoenix suspected that he'd gladly have taken the amorous skunk if it meant he had a chance in hell of following the conversations that buzzed around him, impenetrable as the wrong side of a one-way mirror.

The next morning, late enough to almost be considered early afternoon, Phoenix had finally gotten around to starting his search and was quickly overwhelmed again. He'd been around most of America in one way or another, walked the streets of New York, Hollywood, Chicago... all of them had their size, their grandeur and glitter. Paris was something _else_ , the sheer weight of history and culture shock reducing the normally-glib young man to stammering and staring around and getting lost three times trying to navigate the Metro even though he'd been able to get between points A and B in New York with no help required, thanks. It had felt like a minor miracle just to get to the house he'd been mailing letters to for the better part of the year. Not that it had panned out-- Sophia Vorsoisson, neé von Karma, had turned out to be a charming and gracious hostess, her husband Donatien to be a fellow artist, her daughter Renee to be a bundle of energy, and his namesake Phoenix the dog to be about as dumb as a bag of rocks, but Miles Edgeworth had slipped out early that morning and hadn't been back since despite having left his cell phone behind. Phoenix had politely declined an offer to stay and join them for the annual outing for midnight mass and taken to the streets. Funny how much easier it had been to get around without a specific destination in mind.

Night had fallen and deepened when Phoenix finally stopped walking, eyes fixed dully on a strange stone at his feet that was cryptically labeled _Point Zéro_. He'd been wandering aimlessly around the _Île de la Cité_ since a hasty dinner at a cafe whose name he couldn't pronounce despite several attempts.

"What am I doing?" Phoenix murmured to himself, closing his eyes against the headache that was threatening to throb to life behind his temples and make the day absolutely _perfect_. "It's Christmas Eve and I haven't seen my parents in three _years_..." _And here I am in Paris, chasing after Edgeworth who probably doesn't_ want _to be found considering he wasn't home. I'm just gonna get chewed out, assuming I_ do _find him, and then I get to go home empty-handed after blowing what was supposed to be my house money._ His mind helpfully finished the thought,  taking on Edgeworth's trademark acerbic tone as most of his self-deprecatory thoughts had of late. Phoenix really didn't want to know what it probably said about his mental state that his inner critic happened to have borrowed his friend and courtroom rival's voice for the duration.

 _Shut up, brain. I'm allowed to be selfish once in a while._ It was probably a sign of coming insanity that he was holding internal _dialogs_ , but Phoenix was too tired, too down, and too cold to care much. Stifling a yawn on the back of one gloved hand, Phoenix shuffled through the light coat of snow in the square towards a bench. He could at least rest his feet and look at the gorgeous rose window on the cathedral before him... Not many people got a chance to see Notre Dame de Paris, after all. _I can at least try to enjoy my vacation. It's not like I'm ever going to get a chance to come back..._

It was just after midnight, and the entire building was lit up in gold, the stained glass throwing fragmented rainbow reflections over the square and the snow. Midnight mass had just begun inside, and Phoenix could _feel_ the faint thrum in the air from the organ humming to life. It was enough to cover the last twinges of disappointment-- so his idea to search the crowd doing its slow crowd waltz outside hadn't panned out. It was the witching hour, the time of night his mother always said Santa Claus came to visit, regular as clockwork, and anything was possible amidst the fairy-glow in this strange land with the stars wheeling their stately dance overhead like spilled diamonds in velvet. It was enough to make Phoenix wish he'd actually packed his _good_ camera, enough to make him understand _finally_ why Monet had painted a dozen of the cathedral in Rouen yet avoided Notre Dame. The poor old painter probably wouldn't have been able to bring himself to leave.

 _And next you're going to start rabbiting on about miracles and hope and wax all sappy, Wright. Your life is not a holiday special._ The Edgeworth-voice had lost a little of its edge, and Phoenix half-smiled, leaning back on the bench to watch what stars he could see past the light pollution from the city of lights. There was a bright one in the east, silver-blue like Sirius was in a telescope, wavering a little bit in his vision as his eyes widened in wonder. He'd seen too much in the last year-and-change to turn a blind eye to miracles. Some of his best friends performed miracles on a fairly regular basis.

 _It's probably just a plane._ Still, Phoenix's eyes remained trained on the distant scrap of light as voices inside the great old cathedral swelled into the winter wind and the chorus of a mostly-familiar carol burst faintly beyond the thick stone walls. _Gloria in excelsis Deo._

"Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight," Phoenix murmured, lips curling into a smile at the childish gesture as he recited the rhyme. "I wish I may, I wish I might have the wish I wish tonight."

Eventually, Phoenix's mind drifted and he dozed in the cold, dreaming of an old painter who insisted Phoenix's name was Keith, face still hopefully tilted heavenward.

¤¤¤¤¤

Warmth slowly found its way to Miles Edgeworth's darkened corner of the cathedral as the sea of pews filled in slowly with the incoming tide of humanity. His eyes closed, he caught snatches of the conversations ebbing and flowing around him over the familiar strains of the choir's carols-- the warmth of unexpected greetings, sleepy plaints of children, invitations made and accepted to _Saint-Sylvestre_ and Christmas dinner.

 _Midnight. Or nearly._ Inertia kept Miles seated, as he had been since darkness finally cloaked the city, fingertips worrying over the battered case of an old pocketwatch-- his father's, one of the few mementos he had of Gregory Edgeworth. The engraving on the faded and greening brass was nearly worn away with time and use, but memory supplied the details he could no longer make out by touch alone. The scales of justice, a stylized version of the design on a defense attorney's badge, hid the clock face where the hands were frozen at fifteen minutes to four. The battery had burst on the flight to Paris back in February, hopelessly corroding the mechanism that had faithfully kept time through Miles's career and his father's before him.

 _Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned._ The irreverent thought, edged in poison, crept by the chill numbness that had begun with the letter that morning and finally drove him out of his foster-sister's house and into the cold streets. The innocent piece of paper crackled in the pocket of his coat, but he'd already memorized the contents, as he had with the dozen other letters Phoenix Wright had sent to him since his self-exile earlier in the year. He'd never answered any of them, but it never stopped Phoenix's one-sided, long-distance conversation and the message hidden beneath the stories about Wright's cases and the ups and downs of Gumshoe's career. _We miss you. Come home._

And now Phoenix was in the city somewhere, the letter timed by hook or by crook or by fate to arrive the morning the defense attorney's plane did.

 _He never could leave anything alone._ It had saved his life, the same time last year, when he'd been hopelessly trapped in the twisted, fifteen-year game of revenge his former mentor had been playing. It had cost him everything, when the truth of SL-9 had been revealed and he'd turned out to be no better than Manfred von Karma after all. _The Miles Edgeworth he came here to find is dead. I'm still not sure I know the man who's taken his place._

Perhaps that was what had driven him, finally, to Notre Dame despite the gawky tourists and the constant buzz of activity in preparation for the midnight mass that danced its timeless dance around him while he sat, oblivious, head bowed in half-formed prayer borne of nameless desperation. Here he was anonymous, the infamy of the demon prosecutor literally a world away, hidden further by the plain sweater and corduroy pants he'd chosen in place of what had somehow become his customary impeccable suit. It left Miles feeling almost vulnerable.. but he hadn't set foot in a courtroom since the end of the Skye case. _No need for armor when there's no battle, Edgeworth._

Miles snorted softly at the twist his thoughts had taken, shaded with Wright's familiar half-hopeful appeal. _The last turnabout in my own personal courtroom drama._ He still wasn't quite sure when or how, but somehow the order of things had skewed sideways between himself and the defense attorney between the new year and the disastrous Skye case. Friendship had rekindled with a speed that left Miles blinking bemusedly in its wake, shading with.. _what?_ as the somewhat morose Phoenix started spending more and more of his time around his childhood friend. Phoenix had always been gregarious by nature and the departure of Maya Fey from his office in December had set the lawyer into a sulk, but the chain of events fizzled into incoherence and the evidence didn't _quite_ add up properly. Old _friends_ did not sprawl on couches with their heads in their other old friend's lap, nor did said old friend tolerate such behavior in the world Miles Edgeworth was accustomed to dealing with, and Wright's ridiculous notion of un-Valentine's day be _damned_.

 _Quite a conflict of interest, there, Edgeworth. I didn't have you pegged as a closet romantic._ He'd left a string of casual affairs in his wake, naturally, the rumors of just _who_ his rare assignations involved carefully quashed with the very ruthlessness the court of public opinion had found him guilty for. His career had not been worth such brief moments of passion and pleasure. Romance was another thing entirely, another brick headed straight for what was left of Miles's carefully-constructed glass life. _I'm not the one named Phoenix. How am I supposed to rise from the ashes when I've already wasted so much of my life?_

With a sigh, Miles covered his face with his hands and tried to clear his mind. They were the same problems he'd been worrying at for months, drifting and aimless once he'd used up the task of settling Manfred von Karma's affairs in his enforced time off-- Franziska had been too busy with matters in Berlin to see to them, and Miles was the only other lawyer in the family, for what good it did him. The same problems, and half of them enough that the quiet, cynical voice in his mind wondered snidely if he was finally going to be struck down for thinking of such blasphemous things in the middle of the great cathedral rather than pay attention to the mass.

"Strike me down or give me a sign, Lord. I'm lost," Miles murmured, folding his father's pocketwatch carefully in his hands as he prayed, ignoring the rest of the congregation. He had a faint suspicion that he'd be forgiven for it. If he didn't go mad first.

¤¤¤¤¤

The tolling of the bell was felt more than heard, and Phoenix groggily opened his eyes when his shoulder was shaken to meet a pair of concerned green eyes, their owner asking something too fast for his scattered mind to follow.

"Huh?" It seemed to satisfy the middle-aged woman shaking his shoulder once the young attorney sat up and brushed a thin coat of snow from his shoulders. He managed a wave and a shrug-- _yeah, silly me, sorry for the scare_ \-- and she rejoined her family, probably muttering something unflattering about idiot tourists. The sky had clouded over again and fat snowflakes cartwheeled down, taking their time. The thin coat of snow already on the cobblestone of the square muffled the footsteps of the crowd leaving the cathedral in their dribs and drabs, the mass ended and warm beds much preferable to a lonely bench in the square. Phoenix sighed, closing his eyes as he brushed more snow from his now-drooping hair.

 _I should go back to the hotel before they send search parties or something._ Glumly, he got to his feet and stretched, freezing mid-motion at what his eyes caught among the shifting crowd.

Standing alone in the pool of rainbow-light cast by the rose window was Edgeworth, snowmelt making his gray-dusted hair sparkle. Phoenix took a hesitant step forward, eyes trained on the vision before him lest Edgeworth melt into the crowd and disappear again. He almost couldn't believe the evidence of his eyes, and only the faint fog of his old friend's breathing convinced Phoenix that this wasn't some mirage brought on by sitting in the cold like an idiot.

He looked distracted, troubled even as he gazed at something shining dully-- a watch, the old fashioned kind on a chain-- wound around his ungloved hand. He was almost completely unaware of the crowd around him, a state Phoenix had never seen in the sharply observant prosecutor before, and the people seemed to sense this, giving way to the silent bid for personal space in which to brood.

He looked like an angel, carved lovingly out of perfect cream-pale marble and as unmoving as a statue, the reflections of the light off his hair almost-but-not-quite a halo. Perhaps an angel fallen, eyes haunted with some unvoiced distress that the service hadn't been able to soothe. Phoenix had his guesses, probably-baseless conjecture formed out of a few unrelated pieces of evidence. SL-9. The resignation letter Gumshoe had discovered that had almost resulted in a missing persons report. Or a suicide watch. The habit Phoenix had developed of holding his breath every time he looked at the court docket, eyes automatically searching for a name that wasn't there and hadn't been since February.

Phoenix almost started when his hand brushed heavy wool, his brain and _sense_ overridden again while he had been thinking, and came to rest on Edgeworth's shoulder. The prosecutor started, just a twitch, and turned to regard Phoenix with eyes that widened fractionally with recognition.

"Uh.. hey," Phoenix said, tongue tied by the faintly accusative look Edgeworth fixed on him. He hadn't allowed himself to think of what he'd do if he ever _found_ Edgeworth. It had seemed too unlikely, too fantastic... too much like a holiday special to be believed.

"Wright," Edgeworth said softly, "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you, actually," Phoenix said, eyes slipping down-- _he wasn't wearing the cravat_ \-- unable to meet the storm brewing in Edgeworth's gaze. "I sent a letter.. I guess you didn't get it."

"What for?" There was an edge in the prosecutor's voice, one that cut both ways with bitterness.

"Because." It sounded lame the minute it left Phoenix's lips, and with a reason that lame he had no choice but to look up again. Edgeworth looked faintly perplexed, faintly exasperated, the expression reminding Phoenix of the bemused tolerance Edgeworth had shown after he'd been acquitted of murder and Gumshoe had impulsively invited them all to dinner.

"Because is an adverb, not a reason," Edgeworth said after a moment, sidestepping Phoenix to start across the square towards the Metro station helpfully marked nearby. Phoenix half-skipped in order to keep up with him, matching strides easily once he got the hang of it. They walked in silence, wrapped in the snow that seemed to draw a veil between the two of them and the rest of the world.

"I just wanted to. Can't that be a reason?" Phoenix said, halfway across the square. _Because there are a million things that we never finished, dammit. Because I was worried. Because I can never tell what you're going to do next, and I can't stop_ caring _about you. Because in February you made me break my promise to myself not to cry over people again. Because I_ missed _you, and I'm happy to see you again..._

"You flew to Paris during the busiest and most annoying travel season _just because_. You'll forgive me if I find that a little far-fetched," Edgeworth said, looking at Phoenix sideways.

"You're the one who always goes on about how I'm far-fetched. I think I'm staying pretty well in character," Phoenix said, giving Edgeworth an unrepentant grin. The prosecutor sighed, shaking his head fractionally as he visibly fought a faint smile that served to make Phoenix's heart soar unexpectedly in return.

"You aren't staying in one of those hole-in-the-wall places the college students cram themselves into, are you?"

"Nah. I figure if I'm already going to drop so much money on a plane ticket, I might as well go all the way. I'm staying in Montmartre."

"That's halfway across the city," Edgeworth said, nose wrinkling a little. "Why would you want to stay there if you're going to be bumming around _here_?"

"All the other artists hang out there," Phoenix said, shrugging a little. "And it's off the tourist radar a little."

"Idiot," Edgeworth said, lapsing back into silence as they started down the steps into the station, the escalator shut off due to the later hour and the snow. Phoenix felt a sudden stab of panic as the cool green darkness of the station enveloped them. It was too soon.. they'd _just_ run back into each other. If they parted, he had the terrible sense that it would be the _forever_ sort of parting. And that wasn't the sort of forever he could live with. Not with Edgeworth.

"Wait!" Phoenix said, snagging Edgeworth's hand just in front of the large, incomprehensible map display. The prosecutor's eyes narrowed as he half-turned to regard Phoenix.

"What?" Edgeworth snapped, looking honestly annoyed for a change.

"You can't just leave!"

"Why not?" Edgeworth said, tugging at Phoenix's hand. Something about it felt off, off enough to interrupt the half-baked plea on Phoenix's lips and compel him to look down. Their fingers had twined, the brown leather of Phoenix's gloves contrasting sharply with the winter-pale of Edgeworth's aristocratic hands.

"You don't want me to," he said, the certainty of the words stilling the chasing hamster-thoughts that had been zipping around his head. Edgeworth froze, eyes going wide again and reflecting fragments of the light as he stared at the mute evidence behind the defense attorney's claim.

"So it seems," Edgeworth finally said, weakly, making no move to untangle their hands. It reminded Phoenix of the same time last year, Edgeworth swallowing guilt and anger during the trial and catching hope right along with the poisonous feelings he tried to hold down.

"So come back with me," Phoenix said, not sure if he meant come back to his hotel room or come back _home_ or possibly both. _Please, God, let it be both. I'll never ask for anything ever again._

Edgeworth just looked at their hands and his almost-but-not-quite white knuckled grip, which Phoenix was startled to discover he was mirroring as though any second Fate would intervene and physically tear them apart, having mistaken the numb feeling from squeezing so hard for cold. "All right. All right. I will."

¤¤¤¤¤

There was something disturbingly cozy about Wright's hotel room-- actually a small suite with sitting room, bedroom, and a small kitchenette. There was a decent view of the street below out the door to the balcony, which was closed and locked for the time being, showing off the lazily drifting snow. Miles knew he wasn't going to make it back to Sophia that night-- most of the city had shut down for observance of the holiday, and what was left would be cutting back operations due to the snow-- and wondered idly if his worldly-wise foster sister would be surprised.

 _Considering all her talk of me settling down, probably not._ A mug of fragrant peppermint tea was cradled in his hands, courtesy of Wright, who was sitting beside him on the couch, touching but not-touching as they watched the snow in silence. Wright's habitual monologue had finally run out on the trek up the hills of Montmartre to the hotel, though the quiet lacked the awkwardness Miles had come to associate with those times when conversation dried up. There were words that needed to be said, he could sense _that_ , but they were taking their time.

"I've never seen so much snow," Wright finally said, a little wistfully. "It really does look like the movies."

Miles snorted softly, covering a faint smile at Wright's childishness with a sip of his tea. Of course a lifelong resident of Los Angeles would have next to no concept of snow. Wright was probably lucky he wouldn't be in town during January.. a blizzard would be inconceivable for someone who had never set foot outside the desert.

"Life is hardly like the movies, Wright."

"Yeah, I know. That's why it's always amazing when it _is_ ," Wright said, turning the full wattage of an incandescent grin on Miles.

"I doubt the snow counts," Miles said, unable to look into such a dazzling gaze for long lest he be burnt. He turned his attention back to the view, the sense that _something is going to happen_ stealing over him as he meditatively drank the tea. The sharpness of the mint helped ground him in the here-and-now and ignore that phantom tingling sensation of Wright in his personal space.

"I found you. I didn't think I would," Wright said before the silence deepened again. Miles felt his breath catch.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I went to your address but your sister said you weren't home," Wright said, "She said that you'd gone out to wrestle a demon."

"Sophia says a lot of things," Miles said, hands tightening subtly on the cup as he fought to suppress the urge to grind his teeth. Aimless or not, lost or not, this mess was _his_ to deal with. _If I can't face the truth, what good am I? No matter how unpleasant, I swore an oath to find it and uphold it..._

The sensation of warm fingers pressed against his broke Miles's train of thought suddenly, the bloom of heat penetrating to his chilled fingertips. Wright had wrapped both his hands over the prosecutor's own, pressing them against the warm ceramic mug.

"What are you--"

"I want to help you," Wright said, his deep blue eyes serious as he made the rare interruption. "Nobody should have to face a demon alone, after all."

"It's not your problem," Miles said, trying and failing to pull back. Not with the cup supported awkwardly by the two of them. Phantom pins-and-needles raced up his arms as the precarious sense of _change_ crested and the warmth spread outward from the point of contact between them. _Strike me down or send a sign... No. Despite Wright's reputation with the press, miracles don't happen._ "I should leave."

"It's both of our problem," Wright said, tripping over his words slightly as his brows drew together and a faint, stubborn _I-want_ line appeared between them. "We _both_ solved the case. I should have tried harder instead of letting myself get dazzled by the verdict."

 _Tried harder with what?_ Miles faintly echoed the thought aloud, mind flashing absurdly back to fourth grade and the awed hope he'd seen in Wright's eyes when he objected at the class trial, wondering if the same stunned expression was on his own face. Miles had only seen Wright this intense once before, during the recess following his confession about DL-6 and Wright's immediate promise to defend him. That _I-want_ line had been etched deep between his eyebrows then, too.

"To defend you," Wright said. "The truth came out in court... your only crime was trusting Gant to know what he was doing, and heaven knows you did your penance for that when we caught him and got him brought to trial. If it weren't for you, the conspiracy would never have stopped and the false accusations and the cover-ups would have kept right on going. There's no way I would have been able to put together everything without you... and I think you're the only prosecutor in the district with the guts to actually sign the subpoenas we needed and file for the trials afterward. The headlines should have been talking about that.. not about what happened in SL-9."

Miles held perfectly still as Wright spoke, his mind a complete, disturbing blank as he simply listened to the words. Phoenix's revelation woke that quiet, analytical corner of his mind that was dormant outside of court. The data was processed, fit in with the rest of the information he held about SL-9... and turned his world around about as thoroughly as the evidence of the second gunshot had turned around the year before.

"You really believe that, don't you?" he asked quietly. _So it comes down to the same thing after all.. Forgive yourself and let it go, or allow it to destroy you. Let these changes in you happen, or break yourself trying to fit the same old mold. Miles Edgeworth killed himself on the sword of his own foolish pride when he lost his perfect record. Will his next trick be to bury himself in the mausoleum of his past in memory of such a meaningless thing?_

"I don't need to believe it or disbelieve it.. it's the truth," Wright said simply. _Why is it that when it comes down to it the hardest choices aren't really choices at all?_

"So it is," Miles said softly, barely breathing the words as he tested them and found them to fit.

¤¤¤¤¤

Phoenix was almost dizzy from holding his breath, and let it out with a soft sigh when he felt something in Edgeworth unwind, some tension leave his hands once he'd spoken. If you could touch him, Phoenix found with puzzled startlement, you could read him. The face gave away nothing, the eyes only small flashes of intense emotion, but _touch_ him and you could feel those carefully-controlled emotions thrum through him like the notes vibrated the whole frame of a grand piano. No wonder Edgeworth tended to police his personal space so harshly. It was enough to give Phoenix the courage to continue on-- he wasn't going to get another chance, after all.

  
"Besides... I had to come see you. I need to talk to you," he said.

"We _are_ talking, Wright," Edgeworth said, "I see your mastery of the obvious hasn't diminished any." _Yeah, he's feeling better all right._

"About other stuff," Phoenix said, pressing on anyway. "Us." Faintly, he could feel an aborted flinch in Edgeworth's hands.

"There is no _us_ , Wright. You have nothing that needs talking about," the prosecutor said.

"That's only because you took off before anything happened. Valentine's Day, Edgeworth. We never got a chance to finish it."

"It" had been the focus of more than a few _very_ interesting dreams over the intervening months. Phoenix hadn't expected Edgeworth to agree to spend the evening with him-- really, he'd half-expected Edgeworth to have a date or something. He certainly hadn't expected to end up sprawled on Edgeworth's couch watching old movies with his head in his old friend and rival's lap. And he never in a million years could have predicted the short, startled kiss they'd exchanged at the end of the night, so fast and light that Phoenix had spent at least three months wondering if he'd just imagined it and not helped at all by Edgeworth's business-as-usual demeanor when they'd met again a few days later.

"There's nothing to finish," Edgeworth said, fingers shifting restlessly under Phoenix's hands. "Let go."

"Hear me out, okay?" Phoenix dropped his hands, giving Edgeworth back his space. If they were going to finish things.. well, Edgeworth was going to have to choose. "We were starting to have something. I guess you can't call it love, not really, but it was pretty good and maybe it _could_ be love if it had a chance. I want to try it. That's all."

 _Wright, don't ever quit your day job to write romance novels. You suck at this._ Edgeworth was silent, drinking his tea with slow deliberation as if lost in thought.

 _Yeah, great going Wright. You broke his brain. Are you sure you didn't secretly switch places with Larry at some point? Why is it that when I strike out, I have to strike out so_ big _?_

"You don't know what you're asking for, Wright," Edgeworth said, setting the mug down on the coffee table that stretched between the couch and the doors.

"I-- huh?"

"Start thinking for a change, will you? You want to try it.. well, give _it_ a name, Wright. What do you want from me now, hmm? You've already turned everything completely upside-down and backwards, so this should be interesting." There was bitterness in Edgeworth's voice, yes, and a note of challenge familiar and long-missed.

"Anything I can get," Phoenix said. "Forever, if you have it."

"Forever. We'd kill each other," Edgeworth said with a snort. "A clear conflict of interest."

"Not really. We're a good team. Besides.. I wouldn't ask anything of you that I wasn't willing to give myself."

"Oh? Prove it," Edgeworth said.

"The proof's in the doing. Try me?" Phoenix said with a faint smile. And then there wasn't anything to say at all, because Phoenix leaned in to kiss him and let everything else do the talking for a change.

¤¤¤¤¤

Miles woke slowly to the predawn darkness, warm and sated and relaxed in ways he honestly couldn't remember ever having been before. He was wrapped in warmth, a moment's investigation revealing that Phoenix was hugging him like an outsized teddy-bear, head neatly resting over Miles's heart. The prosecutor's own fingers were buried in Phoenix's surprisingly soft mess of spikes, which were sticking out everywhere after the long night. Ironic that the spikes were _more_ untamed without the gel in them.

 _Romance, Edgeworth? I didn't think you had it in you._

Miles sighed, beginning the process of patiently extracting his arm from under Phoenix Wright without waking the defense attorney. Three of the fingers had gone numb overnight from the unaccustomed position. He hadn't expected Phoenix to pin him... or to so completely hold back when he'd frozen, invoking logic before either of them did anything stupid. Or premature.

 _It's Phoenix now, is it?_

Patiently shoving aside the slightly mocking, self-satisfied thoughts, Miles eased out from under his.. _Lover? Friend? Rival?_ and padded across the bedroom on bare feet, gooseflesh rising on his skin at the faint draft coming from the curtained windows. He needed a shower, faintly _itchy_ with the phantom sensation of dirt on his skin and quickly going cold without the defense attorney pressed warm and solid against him.

 _But the overly-romantic idiot wants forever._

Forever was something else again, prodding at the still-delicate scabs over his last spectacular failures. Forever could kill his career far more effectively than any evidence fabrication scandal, right when he was on the verge of going back to Los Angeles. Forever meant risking everything on the off-chance another human being could be trusted, after the betrayals of the past. Forever meant that, for better or worse, he wasn't going to be alone, after spending most of a lifetime entirely by himself.

And this was Phoenix Wright, the man who had already taken his life from complicated to hideously so in the space of a few months. The man who couldn't ever leave anything alone, and would probably doggedly follow Miles to the end of his days if he didn't do something to end it _soon_. Just that thought was enough to almost send him to the next train to Berlin. The rumors and the SL-9 scandal would pale in comparison to what might happen if the press got wind of the faintest possibility of Wright's forever, and Miles himself knew that he'd be constantly checking himself for possible conflict of interest anytime he and Wright met in the courtroom. It would mean walking back into the middle of whatever mess he'd made when he'd fled in February, enduring once more the reputation he'd earned as the demon prosecutor, wearing himself out trying to outwit the deep-buried corruption in the legal system while simultaneously second-guessing himself to prevent another SL-9...

When Miles stepped out of the shower and into the steam-fogged bathroom, he had almost made up his mind. Phoenix slept on, oblivious, as he gathered up their haphazardly-flung clothes and slipped his pants back on to ward off the cold. As he did, his toes brushed something cold and metal-- the broken watch. Miles bent to pick it up, blinking when he saw that the watch's chain was tangled up with something else that clicked against the case with the distinct sound of muffled metal. Curious, he carried it over to the window and opened the curtains so that the streetlights could shine in a little.

Somehow, Phoenix's attorney's badge had gotten neatly pinned into the links of the old, dead pocketwatch's chain. Miles stared at it mutely, sitting in his cupped palms alongside the battered watch case. He knew that Phoenix was absent-minded, but surely he wouldn't have dragged an important thing like his badge all the way to Paris where it could get hopelessly lost? And _how_ had..?

 _You did ask for a sign._

Wind rattled against the windowpane, reminding Miles forcefully that he still wasn't wearing a shirt and it was _cold_.

 _The hardest choices aren't really choices at all._

¤¤¤¤¤

Morning announced itself with sun slanting through the gap in the curtains and straight into Phoenix's eyes. Blearily, he reached for Edgeworth-- Miles-- and groaned when his hand encountered nothing but rumpled blankets.

"Maybe it was a dream," Phoenix breathed, feeling a tight, cold knot tie itself right behind his heart. He sat up slowly, wincing as the sun knifed into his eyes again, and looked around the room for clues. His suitcase was sitting open on the chair, everything neatly put away as it had been when he'd left the hotel the day before. His clothes were piled haphazardly on the second chair, but there was no evidence of Miles's cashmere and corduroy anywhere near his own scratchy wool sweater and jeans. Disappointment tightened Phoenix's throat as he finally levered himself out of bed and dressed in an old pair of sweatpants to ward off the chill that seeped past the curtains. Lovely view or not, the large windows in the suite weren't the best-insulated things in the world. He'd misplaced the old fraternity sweatshirt that usually went with the pants-- probably shoved them into the laundry bag by accident again-- but he didn't have the heart to go looking for it. Somehow, he had a feeling that the luck contained in the several sizes too big shirt wasn't the kind that could help him.

"Room service," he muttered, wincing at how strained his voice sounded around the knot in his throat. Coffee would help him put his mind together and hopefully warm him up. It was a plan, anyway.

Phoenix sighed, halfheartedly folding his clothes and setting them on top of the pile in his suitcase before he shuffled out into the main parlor room of the suite... and froze in the doorway.

Two coats were spread in front of the radiator to dry, and a sharp note of peppermint hung in the air from the teapot sitting innocuously on the coffee table. Curled up on the couch was Miles Edgeworth, reading the newspaper with a mug of tea in one hand, wearing the missing sweatshirt that easily enveloped him to the knees. Surreptitiously, Phoenix pinched himself, but he was still sitting there, only now the newspaper had been folded and the prosecutor had fixed Phoenix with an amused look.

"See something interesting, Wright?" Miles said teasingly as he took a sip of his tea.

"You stole my shirt," Phoenix blurted, though he could feel the start of what was probably a _goofy_ grin on his face.

"It's warm," Miles said, considering the ragged edge of one cuff with a half-smile of his own. "Considering that you were babbling about forever last night, a shirt should be nothing."

Phoenix laughed, crossing the room faster than he thought should be reasonably possible, and pulled Edgeworth-- _Miles_ into a tight hug. After a breathless moment, he felt his new lover's arms close around his back, hesitant only for a moment before returning the embrace firmly.

"Forever, hmmm?" Phoenix murmured. "You never did answer the question."

Miles sighed, the sort of full-body sigh that Phoenix normally associated with cats, and pulled him down for a kiss that left him momentarily breathless as well as speechless, completely derailing his train of thought.

"I accept."


End file.
